For today’s blog, I chose two films that were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Picture in 2008. I know 2008 is a strange and random year but I chose it out of coincidence. About a week and half ago, a few days into quarantine, my little brother was watching the movie Bolt on TV. I’m surprised I’ve never seen it before because I was a dog movie fanatic when I was younger. With nothing else to do, I sat down and decided to watch it with him, and in all honesty, I loved it. A few days later I was looking through Wikipedia to find some Academy Awarded movies, and I was curious if Bolt was nominated for any awards. Turns out, in 2008 Bolt was nominated for Best Animated Picture but was runner up to the movie WALL-E. It had been a long time since I last saw WALL-E and I was actually really excited to watch it again. Overall, both movies have important morals towards the younger audience, but I definitely agree with WALL-E taking the prize.
The movie Bolt directed by Bryon Howard and Chris Williams revolves around the story of a famous, heroic dog named Bolt (John Travolta), who has lived on set in Hollywood his whole life and believes he has unique superpowers. Since Bolt is not aware he is in a TV show, his owner Penny (Miley Cyrus) is kidnapped in the episode, and in an effort to try and save her, he accidentally gets shipped to New York City. From there, Bolt befriends an extremely sarcastic alley cat named Mittens (Susie Essman) and a little hamster Rhino (Mark Walton) who is obsessed with Bolt’s character in the show. The three of them travel across the country to get Bolt back home to Penny while also introducing Bolt to reality and teaching him how to be a normal dog.
I can very much see why this movie was nominated for Best Animated Picture. Bolt is an action packed yet heartwarming movie about a dog who overcame the hard-hitting realization that he didn’t in fact have superpowers, but he had bravery and a big heart that cared tremendously about his “person” Penny. Bolt realized that someone he loved was in need of his help, and although learning he is just a normal dog, he travels across the country alongside his new friends to find her. This is important for an audience of all ages in that you should never give up hope, and keep pushing. Bolt had to learn from a cat whom he originally believed to be his arch enemy, that his entire life is a lie and just entertainment for people. He was able to overcome the obstacle of realizing he wasn’t invincible and pain and hunger were part of living in the real world. It also showed that even your worst enemies can become your closest friends. Bolt’s initial response to meeting Mitten’s was holding her over a bridge trying to force out answers she didn’t have. Over the course of their journey, they built an unbreakable bond of trust and with that, were able to work together to find their way back home and both live happily ever after.
The movie WALL-E directed by Andrew Stanton takes place roughly seven hundred years in the future where humans have abandoned Earth due to the uninhabitable conditions from the severe excess amount of trash and garbage that covers the Earth. There was a plan of recolonization where robots called WALL-E clean the planet and prepare for the return of humans, but only one WALL-E (Ben Burtt) has survived. One day while tidying up the planet, WALL-E discovers the impossible, a plant. WALL-E’s life changes when a mysterious sleek and modern probe called EVE (Elissa Knight) arrives on Earth searching for any living plants. WALL-E accidentally falls in love with EVE, revealing the plant to her, resulting in them hitching a ride on the ship to the Axiom, where all the humans are located. When there is word that plants are growing and surviving on Earth again, there is hope that everyone can return back home.
WALL-E is a well developed and crafted movie for an audience of all ages. For viewers of a younger audience, it emphasizes and introduces the importance of taking care of our planet and how precious it is, as well and the consequences in a way they can understand and enjoy watching. It also informs and educates older viewers on the effects of large consumer companies and corporations (known as Buy N Large in the movie) and outcome of when those companies gain too much power. Much similar to large corporations today, the BnL logo was plastered everywhere, in the scene where the ship takes off from Earth with EVE and WALL-E, it shows the moon, the American flag, and then has a billboard advertising BnL products. In the movie BnL was responsible for all the garbage and trash that covered the surface of the Earth, so in other words due to the thoughtless consumerism from this company, the Earth suffered total environmental degradation, making it impossible for life to thrive on Earth. Now in the movie, the Axiom offered many activities, had a stable homeostasis temperature of seventy-two with constant sunny weather. It was basically a resort with gigantic swimming pools for the people to enjoy. There was one scene showing the captains room, with all the murals of the different captains throughout the years upon the Axiom. The first two-three were in good to decent shape, weight wise. Then as it started going down the line, the people kept getting larger and larger. This is to the point where all the people aboard the Axiom can’t take care of themselves. All of them are morbidly overweight, drinking disgusting amounts of soda, and are too lazy or incapable of doing absolutely anything. They are 100% reliant on the artificial intelligence on board the Axiom. Although this isn’t an exact replica of the world today, in some ways it is very similar. Humans are becoming more and more reliant on machines to take care of them, for example cars can drive themselves, that's exactly like in WALL-E, the chairs people lived in maneuvered themselves around the ship, they didn’t even have to lift a finger. A movie like WALL-E is very important to watch and understand because although people say to themselves, “it’s just a movie” it can very much happen in real life. People can lose themselves in technology and give into consumerism of large populations. Also, personally I feel like most adults should watch this movie again to get them to understand that climate change is very much a real thing, and if we don’t start taking it seriously, our planet will inevitably look like Earth in the movie.
Both Bolt and WALL-E are two very entertaining movies, even though they are animated and mainly focused on a younger audience, they both have very important lessons to be learned. Bolt was more focused on overcoming personal obstacles, facing the real world, and having hope, not giving up on yourself. WALL-E was more focused on the consequences of humanities mistakes. They were forced to leave Earth because a large corporation destroyed and riddled the entire planet with garbage. It also shows what happens when people stop caring about themselves and just eat junk food all the time. WALL-E while educating the importance of caring and preserving our planet, it also shows that there is always hope in saving and protecting our home.
Love the introduction as a very natural way to transition into the assignment. Funny to think of young Antonia as a "dog movie fanatic" lol. Great phrasing. The evaluation is very clear throughout-- summary (with crediting/context) paragraph and then an evaluation paragraph. The evaluation is clear and the language always makes sense. Good reading of each film and I like the inclusion of audience accessibility as you measure these two movies against one another. Would have liked to see you take some more structural risks-- the intro/conclusion paragraphs are the only ones that let you really address BOTH movies at once. Makes the comparison/synthesis stronger. Nice title and connection to the world at large!
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